


The Lion

by Lochinvar



Series: Talismen [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Angel Castiel, Angelic Grace as a Cure, Angels, Archangels, Awesome Bobby, BAMF Castiel, Big Brother Dean, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Boys In Love, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Love, Canada, Canon Era, Caring Dean, Chicago (City), Chicago Cubs, Comfort Food, Curses, Dragon Horde - mentioned, Dragons - mentioned, Drinking & Talking, Drunk Sam, Dwarves - mentioned, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Good people, Guardian Angels, Guns, Hex Bags, Hunter Dean, Hunter Dean Winchester, Hunter Sam, Hunter Sam Winchester, Hurt Dean Winchester, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied Slash, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, International Relations, M/M, Magic, Magical Tattoos, Military Backstory, Mobsters, Moscow, Multi, Native American Character(s), No Sex, No Smut, Not Really Character Death, Ode to Chicago, POV Original Character, POV Outsider, Pie, Pre-Series, Protective Bobby Singer, Protective Sam Winchester, Rituals, Russian Mythology, Scars, Sigils, Slice of Life, Smart Dean Winchester, Stitches, Storms, Talismen, Tattoos, Texas, Vampires, White Witch - Freeform, Wincest if you squint, Witch Curses, Witch Hunters, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 08:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4094560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lochinvar/pseuds/Lochinvar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lev was an old Siberian hunter, older than Bobby and as tall as Sam, with a beer belly, a silver brush cut, blue rheumy eyes, and a stereotypical capacity for American vodka, American beef, and American women (and men) of flexible morality.  </p><p>Bobby Singer and the Winchester brothers collide with him at a gun and knife show in San Antonio, and he meets up with Sam and Dean years later in Chicago.</p><p>What do Lev and the rest of the world’s hunters know that the American Winchester boys have missed, mostly because of John’s obsession with the Yellow-Eyed Demon and the Hunt?</p><p>Teen to be on the safe side, for mentions of drinking, guns, and for sex and violence offstage.</p><p>Own nothing; rely on the kindness of strangers.</p><p>Ode to Chicago and tough Midwesterners, with side trips to sample Hill Country BBQ in Texas and Eastern European goodies in Winnipeg.</p><p>[Minor edits - November 19, 2015]</p><p>[Minor edits - August 30, 2015]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Baby and the Blizzard

**Chicagoland – The Present**

Dean Winchester parked the Impala near Chicago’s iconic O’Hare airport. The side street was partially hidden in one of the city’s many “perpetual destruction” sites, a graveyard of discarded tools, construction debris, and abandoned trucks and front-end loaders.

The winds from a record-breaking blizzard nuzzled Baby’s windows, licking frost onto the glass and rocking her as they panted against her sides. Most of the howls were drowned in her big engine’s gravelly purr, cradling the brothers in their favorite lullaby.

Even with the heat pouring from wide-open vents, Dean and brother Sam huddled under layers of thrift store flannel and two scratchy Army surplus blankets. Every few minutes, Sam would pull his cell phone from the deep pockets of his gigantic hoodie, check the time, and then snuggle his hands and phone back under. He glared at the driving snow, eyes narrowed in glowing slits.

Dean swore that years after the demon blood had been leeched from his veins, Sam’s eyes still would pulse amber and moss when he was staring down a monster, or, in this case, a rare lake-enhanced, Chicagoland winter storm.

Dean’s eyes were closed. He wasn’t cold, but he wasn’t warm enough and hadn’t been since they left the Quad Cities. Ran out of M&Ms® and granola bars an hour ago. Half napping, he hoped that they would not run out of gas; he knew that the Impala, even when idling, was a glutton, although he would never admit it to Sam.

Dean dozed. Pie would be nice. Cherry pie. With apple pie on the side. He slipped into a dream of a pie train, chugging across a winter landscape of wheat stubble and broken corn stalks, stretching from Chicago to Denver.

The alarm on Sam’s cell phone woke him. Still half-asleep, Dean put Baby into gear, and they slid onto an empty boulevard, heading to the airport. The streets were barely passable, but the Impala muscled through on heavy snow tires and enough Detroit steel to create her own gravity well.


	2. Meeting Lev

**San Antonio, Texas – Five years earlier**

In the Lone Star State, the Feds are looking for cartel buyers and self-appointed revolutionaries, said Sam.

And hunters look too poor to be much of a threat to the Republic, said Dean.

This will be a big show, easy to stay under the radar, and some of the dealers are hunters, said Sam.

The New Braunfels Smokehouse is close enough for lunch, said Dean. And dinner.

Bobby sighed. He swore that sometimes these battle-toughened men still were teenage boys. Hunters typically do not frequent public gun sales; too many ATF undercovers checking out attendees.

But damn, he knew fine guns are honey and roe-bellied salmon to hunters, and the boys were due a break.

Okay, they all deserved a break. He went along to keep the idjits out of trouble.

\-----

Bobby, Dean, and Sam were skilled at becoming invisible. The three hunters entered the arena separately, paying cash for their tickets.

Sam shuffled in, hunched over, clutching a greasy paper bag and a well-worn Gideon’s Bible lifted from a long-forgotten motel room. His long hair, left uncombed and greased up with a dab of gun oil, mostly was tucked under a dirtied up black and orange Longhorns cap. He wore a vague smile. His eyes focused about two feet in front of him, and he muttered to himself.

Bobby balanced an old pair of scratched up reading glasses on his whiskey-tinged nose and squinted. Smelled of stale beer and old shoes. Maintained just the right amount of eye contact. Nodded some. Spoke to no one. His grey hair worked well; most senior citizens are invisible to the rest of the world.

Dean had grown an extra couple of days of scruff, and his clothes had the ripe smell of fresh manure; no one would cozy up and stay long enough to ask too many questions. He wore a sun-bleached green and yellow John Deere cap and had a stage makeup burn scar on his chin. Just enough to draw attention and then cause folks to shy away without seeing the rest of his face. 

Lev, on the other hand, would have stood out in any gathering.

The old lion was Siberian, older than Bobby and as tall as Sam, with a beer belly, a silver brush cut, blue rheumy eyes, and a stereotypical capacity for American vodka, American beef, and American women (and men) of flexible morality.

Lev was built like an NFL offensive tackle. He wore an antique black leather duster (tanned, an excited Sam later told Dean and Bobby, in the old Russian style with birch oil), with a row of sigils blind embossed along the collar. The long coat was draped over his impossibly wide shoulders, revealing ironed jeans, a spotless white shirt, and a skinny black tie, tacked in place with a five-carat Texas Topaz tiepin, set in a seven-point silver star.

His boots were worn black leather (creature unknown, or more accurately, unnamed), well oiled and embossed with sigils that matched the ones on the duster, with insets of silver.

The Russian’s blue eyes, which perfectly matched his etched blue topaz, shone with pleasure as he talked. His face was carved deeply with laugh lines from a lifetime of good humor. His accent was thick, and he was slow and careful with his words. He frequently punctuated his conversation with a catch phrase–How do you say in English–eliciting smiles from his listeners. He made the crowd chuckle, with the generous, self-deprecating humor of the retired star athlete or chairman of the board.

All three hunters found themselves part of a crowd watching and listening to him talk old guns with one of the most respected of the private dealers, a tall, bony old man with the long arms and legs of a Kentucky sharpshooter. Name of Garrett. His wares were on black velvet cloth under shatterproof glass in locked oak cases. Three younger men in blue denim shirts and tailored khakis stood at the ready behind the display tables. Sam thought they looked liked combat-seasoned Army rangers. Were introduced as his grandsons. 

Dean liked the way the tall foreigner handled the antique 1877 Colt, which obviously was the dealer’s pride and joy. He didn’t complain when he was required to don archival cotton gloves; he slowly traced the engraved metal with his fingertips, asking respectful questions about provenance. No showing off with gun twirls and fake fast draws. 

Billy the Kid’s gun, said Lev. The crowd murmured in appreciation.

He looked around the crowd, his eyes sliding over the three hunters. He turned and smiled at the dealer.

Colts, they are wonderful, he said. I will buy this.

He pulled a zippered cash deposit bag from an inner pocket of the duster. It was made of soft leather the color of butterscotch and stamped with the logo of Credit Suisse. Lev extracted a thick, bank-wrapped stack of $100 bills and counted out one hundred in front of the mesmerized crowd.

I live in Texas, he said, proffering a driver’s license. I am not drunk, and I will commit no crimes.

The crowd laughed at his recitation of the legal litany required of local gun buyers.

One of the unsmiling grandsons stepped forward. He took the money and began rapidly checking for counterfeits with a detection pen, UV lights, and a lit jeweler’s loupe. Another sandwiched the gun carefully between cutout foam blocks and placed it in an inexpensive, soft-sided, canvas case. Old man Garrett smiled.

Ah, but my favorite weapons are the Winchesters, Lev announced. He pretended to shoot an imaginary rifle into the ceiling of the gun show’s arena. The audience laughed; a few applauded. 

He kept his eyes on his money, fumbling as he put the extra bills back in the pouch, then zipped it closed, and slipped it into the duster’s inner pocket.

The grandson finished his inspection, and Garrett nodded his permission. Lev took the cloth case where the antique gun nestled, put the strap over his shoulder, nodded his thanks, and turned to leave. The crowd parted. He shuffled a little, as old men do. He drifted to the edge of the crowd, stumbling against Bobby. He put his hands on the hunter’s shoulders and leaned forward to steady himself.

New Braunfels Smokehouse. 2 pm, he mumbled in his ear, and left. 

\-----

The quartet bonded over Shiner Bock and Hill Country barbeque, sitting at a white picnic table near Lev’s sleek rental, a silver late-model Cadillac that might look ostentatious in Westport, Connecticut or Hollywood, California, but not in Texas.

Lev was delighted to meet the North American hunters. An honor, he said. How did he recognize them? The Siberian smiled.  Wanted posters, Interpol faxes, e-mails, photos from other hunters. There were ways.

(Dean and Sam were puzzled. Typically, American hunters ignored their overseas counterparts; they rarely chased supernatural game past international borders. On the other hand, as has been true for hundreds of years, fugitives tend to head west, so foreign hunters visited the United States, but they usually kept a low profile. This was not the first time Lev had come to the United States. What puzzled the brothers was the tall hunter's obvious wealth. Bobby, on the other hand, seemed to know who Lev was and seemed to take the car and money for granted.)

The Russian paid for their meals, buying a la carte quantities of smoked meats and sides by the pound and pint. Dean fell in love with a turkey and bacon salad and the more than tasty pinto beans and sauerkraut. When Sam found out that mac and cheese was not on the take-out menu, he went inside and bought six servings. And did not share. He told Dean, between mouthfuls, that Dean’s was the best. Dean stole a bite and loved his brother even more for lying.

The brothers and Bobby listened to the Russian hunter’s improbably funny stories of sexual prowess and bravery under fire. Sam and Dean could not remember the last time they had laughed so hard or that laughing could hurt so good. More than once Bobby needed to be pounded on the back to recover from a choking fit. He also told of monsters that even Bobby and Sam had never even read about.

I must be hitting the road soon, as you say, so we will meet another time for a proper dinner, Lev said, after four hours of steady eating and drinking. 

With fulsome regrets, Lev said good-bye in the parking lot, stashing a massive box of smoked turkeys and pork roasts in the Caddy’s trunk, and headed out. The three American hunters staggered to a nearby motel and passed out in a pleasant beer- and smoked-brisket induced coma.


	3. Lev and the Witches

**Chicagoland – Present Day**

Lev was chasing a murderous Baba Yaga wannabe, Agrafena, from a coven nested in a giant Soviet-era apartment complex in Vladivostok, not far from where Yul Brunner (honorary Romani and suspected hunter) was born.

The youthful witch had raised the blizzard as a distraction, strangling the Central Time Zone. She planned to blind her pursuer as she escaped through Grand Forks up to Winnipeg. She rallied the winds off the Great Lakes like she turned her silver and ivory knives into the hearts of her enemies, with a twist of bony white wrists and a banshee shriek. 

Agrafena held the New World in contempt. She wanted to gut the heart of the lower 48 and leave it a hollow, dark shell. She also hoped to kill the old hunter as a bonus–perhaps crushed in a plane crash or bridge collapse or starved as food supplies sat rotting in trucks on interstates. 

But she did not understand that people who had cut their milk teeth on snowmobiling in Minot, North Dakota, and ice fishing on Lake Mille Lacs, Minnesota, were not going to be deterred by some antique Old World spell. 

Hell, these Americans and Canadians were planning snow-day parties, and visiting neighbors on cross-country skis, and conducting welfare checks for great-grannies who still chopped their own firewood, and delivering shopping bags filled with coffee and toilet paper and chocolate-dipped potato chips. Moms in jeans and fluffy aprons pulled wrapped packages of ground venison and walleye fillets from their freezers, built fires in the quaint but operative woodstoves in their family rooms, and broke out the homemade cherry wine and cheddar ale soup. 

The witch raged at the idea that these puny Midwesterners were baking scones and heating up pans of lasagna instead of cowering in terror of what howled through the pine forests at midnight.

Under five layers of wool and cashmere the necklace of blessed narwhale ivory beads tugged at the grizzled Siberian hunter’s neck, pulling him like the fisted hands of a lover in the right direction. He could afford a good night’s sleep, or three, before he caught his ride to Fargo and followed the witch across the border to Canada.

In a Darknet mercenary chat room Lev had found a bored boychik living in South Milwaukee named Jeremiah Duffy, honorably discharged with three tours of duty under his belt, the last in a godforsaken territory that was a prosperous tributary of the Silk Road centuries ago, but now no one could pronounce its name outside of the State Department.     

The 20-something ex-sniper had a passion for automotive dreadnoughts and was up for a well-paid adventure. His imported all-wheel-drive behemoth, tricked out with a luxury cab and extra horsepower, could get them to the Yukon, if Lev asked. (And he might, by the end of this trail.) And it did not hurt that German engineering was known to be imbued with Black Forest witchcraft. It was rumored that at least one legendary carmaker still had salaried dwarves on the payroll, compensated from a Liechtenstein vault tumescent with dragon plunder. 

The hunter also had alerted a family of Manitoban white witches, whose great-great-grandparents had emigrated from Boburisk in Belarus. The three sisters, as he recalled from previous encounters, were brilliant, beautiful, and deadly. And exhaustingly inventive in bed.

By the time the Siberian arrived, they would have located the witch and kept tabs on her from a safe distance, gifting the kill to Lev.

Then, they would be prepared to celebrate with ice wine, garlicky Romanian karnatzala with horseradish, thick slices of dark rye flavored with caraway seeds and smeared with sweet butter, fermented pickles and cabbage, sliced radishes and scallions sprinkled with sea salt, coarse ground pepper, red wine vinegar and olive oil, and cucumber and tomato salad with dill and yoghurt dressing. 

For dessert, apple strudel, mason jars filled with homemade wishniak, and a raised bed of down-stuffed quilts covered in clean sheets and strewn with rose petals and the sisters in mock-innocent disarray. A thank-you fit for the Heir Tsesarevich.

The boychik would make a tasty diversion for the sisters. Lev hoped the experience would not spoil him for future assignations.

Which raised the question once again: _Why did the Winchesters and the Campbells, hell, most American hunters, hate all witches indiscriminately?_

He messaged Sam and Dean from JFK after arriving from Paris that he was coming to Chi-Town and needed ground support. The boys were glad to oblige. They had headed north from the bunker and hopped on I-80 at Kearney. Being the only idjits on the River Road, they safely could ignore the speed limit (pretty much a casual suggestion except in Iowa) and make decent time despite the growing head winds. Dean, in his mind’s eye, could see the open jaws of the storm in the distance, with Baby racing to plunge down its throat.

So they had parked in the destruction zone, waiting for his call.

Lev’s plane was the last flight that could make its way from the East Coast and land safely before the storm of the century closed down air traffic for a thousand miles. It glided in during an unexpected pause in the storm’s violence, enabled by what FAA personnel unofficially noted as divine intervention.

The brothers snatched the visiting hunter from the baggage claim area and, at his request, bedded him down in a third-rate, out-of-the-way, airport hotel near the Des Plaines River called the _Touhy_. Both Sam and Dean made note of the heft and size of his luggage and wondered what sigils protected his cargo from Interpol and TSA snoops as well as the more sophisticated European airport X-ray machines.

They stashed his luggage in a ground floor room near the front door, warded the premises, locked the door, and headed down the hallway for a snack and a drink.


	4. The Hotel

Surrounded by ancient Chicago Cubs baseball memorabilia, the hunters had the hotel dining room to themselves, complete with a Birdseye maple bar equipped with fat, red-cushioned high stools. The wind from the storm rapped its knuckles against the barred windows, but the building was constructed of thick, yellow brick, built to withstand several generations of indigenous lousy winters.

Old photos of local high school sports teams lined the walls, preserved under cheap glass and black dime store frames.

Like most hunters, Sam and Dean felt an affinity for the Chicago Cubs, as did Lev. Part of that was technology. No matter what crappy motel or bar they found themselves while growing up, if it had cable, it probably carried WGN, which broadcast the Cubs baseball games nationally as one of the first super stations. It was a cultural thread that people who lived in American motels in a certain era shared. 

Also, the supernatural aspect was intriguing. Was it the fact that Wrigley Field might have been built on a cemetery? The goat curse? The black cat curse? Or, as un-superstitious Bobby and John pointed out to Sam and Dean repeatedly, the owners' decision early on to turn the team into a cash cow, which meant pay the least amount they could get away with for players–including the vital pitching staff?

Lev muttered a laudatory _Ernie Banks_ before each shot.

The Siberian still had plenty of money, another thick roll of bank-crisp U.S. $100 bills, provided by an honor-bound Moscow mobster. A newly turned teenage vampire, full of bravado, did not understand some humans were off limits even to the most bloodthirsty of monsters. When it snatched the Russian mobster’s youngest daughter from the back door of a nightclub in Moscow, Lev and his cousins tracked it down and snatched her back unharmed, destroying a nest of 13 fangs in the process.

One cousin did not make it. They salted and burned his corpse (as well as the dead vamps and a pile of human remains) in an abandoned farmyard outside of the city. They poured the collective ashes into a tributary of the Moskva River, letting the healing waters wash away any taint of the vampires’ stained souls from the remains.

Each surviving cousin took away a suitcase of gold bars and Euros; Lev asked for his thank-you gift in American dollars. He refused the shiny bars, knowing how criminal interests (included, it has been alleged, the post-Communist-era government) were wrapping wolfram in gold. Counterfeits were getting harder to detect, unless he was willing to gut each bar to check its integrity. He had better things to do.

_[Editor’s note: Never try to palm off fake gold bars on Teutonic dwarves. Or dragons.]_

I suppose I should be grateful to that poor vampire kiddo, said Lev, watching as Sam hefted the roll of clean bills with wide-eyed surprise. 

The bar food was anything that could fit in a fryer, or microwave, or could be cooked on a short-order grill. They ate microwaved shrimp scampi, microwaved deep-dish pizza, and fried cheese curds, the legacy of a former hostess who was a Green Bay Packers fan. Dean and Sam introduced Lev to Chicago-style hot dogs, split and splayed on the grill to blacken and curl, wrapped in the obligatory poppy seed bun, and doused in condiments. They warned him against adding ketchup to the mix–an unforgivable faux pas in the Windy City. 

The main course was off a short menu of steaks and burgers. Luckily, the cook had drunk himself out of a six-figure career at a string of the best Loop steakhouses. Even lost in the middle of a bender, he could coax a prime, aged, cowboy-cut rib eye into, well, Jimmy Novak would have traded his soul for that steak and a side of the house potatoes, plush with cream and shards of aged Herkimer cheddar.

The cook added a platter of slabs of Texas toast grilled with butter and crushed garlic to sop up the juices. Sam moaned over his first bite and forgot to bitch about salads and cholesterol for the rest of the evening.

\-----

The bartender cum waitress, a natural dishwater blonde with milk chocolate eyes, wore a shapeless black man’s sweater over her uniform, timeworn camouflage that did not fool the hunters. Dean and Lev flirted with her outrageously just to see her smile, but all three men were polite. Sam helped her carry dirty dishes back to the kitchen. 

She, in turn, broke out her boss’ secret stash of Becherovka, and the Russian bought a bottle for Dean and Sam to take back to the bunker, with the understanding that this was for _sipping,_ if you please.


	5. History Lesson

Happily stuffed, Lev and the brothers then performed the ritual that has linked warriors for 500,000 years. Under the imperturbable eyes of the bartender, they each shed several layers of coats, sweaters, and shirts, piling them on a nearby table, and then bared chests and rolled up boxer legs to show off scars and ink. Bowing to local customs, Lev kept his red silk boxers on. 

(In his country, the ceremony would have been performed in a steam bath or outside under a full moon, with all parties, including observers, sky-clad.)

Blondie perked up at the sight of toned Winchester abs on display, inspiring Dean to roll his hips to an imaginary saxophone solo and Sam to blush and hastily grab a flannel shirt to wear, albeit inside out, as a token to modesty. 

With drawing room formality, as the visitor, Lev asked ritual permission to touch and look. His hands and eyes were as impersonal as a surgeon’s and as intimate and familiar as a longtime lover’s. 

The old hunter hummed appreciation at the anti-possession tattoos and the marks left by teeth, claws, and acid monster spit. He had heard the tale of how their blessed angel had carved sigils into the brothers’ rib cages to protect them from being found by Michael, Lucifer, and other angelic unfriendlies during multiple end-of-the-world conflicts. He hovered his hand over their chests and closed his eyes.

Both brothers would swear later that the Siberian was reading the signs, nodding as he translated the Enochian in real time, like those elite United Nations simultaneous interpreters. It led Sam to speculate that Lev was more than an aging hunter and maybe more than human.

Lev’s fingers lingered over the faded traces of old stitches, embroidered into skin and flesh under flashlights and motel lamps. He squinted at the delicate, unbroken rows of pale surgical scars, well tended and healed clean. 

He imagined them as boys, half the age of the men in front of him, and even younger, sewing each other up, frowning, concentrating, holding their breaths, trying not to hurt, trying not to upset each other, hardly ever crying, taking care of each other. Acts of devotion in every pull of floss and thread from sewing needles sterilized in motel glasses filled with cheap rubbing alcohol, a dollar a bottle at off-brand gas stations. Made Lev think of the holy virgins who sewed the vestments that hung in the churches of his youth, worshipping God through their skills with gold thread, lace, and brocade. 

Those barely visible white tracks, slightly raised, were the evidence of what a big city surgeon would call professional competence and his grandmother Birdie would have called love. They told Lev as much and more about the brothers’ relationship as did the way Dean smoothed a few stray hairs from Sam’s brow–a stealthy excuse for a caress–and Sam’s pointing to a scar on Dean’s thigh that really did look like the squiggle of a bird in flight, then soothing it with a gentle swipe of his giant hand. 

Each time they touched each other they stared for a beat at the skin beneath their fingers and then started up again, as if God pressed the reset button of their world.

Continents away and for decades, the Russian lion had heard the stories of meshuga John Winchester, seeking revenge on the Yellow-Eyed Demon. The notorious hunter, an unknowing pawn in an epic war between Heaven and Hell, according to the lore, had bullied and sometimes beaten his two sweet, devoted boys into killing machines, as if he were tempering enchanted swords with human blood. The stories, it turned out, were true.

The Siberian hunter blessed both brothers silently and shook an invisible fist at the heavens, chastising and praising John in the same accusatory prayer of admonition and thanks.

At first, Lev was impressed at how relatively unsullied the brothers seemed, even after decades in the life, until Sam explained that they had both been dead, reborn, and reconstructed countless times and had their very own blue-eyed EMT on call. 

Lev crossed himself reverently.

Sam, effusively waving his hands just a smidge short of interpretative dance, told his third favorite Castiel tale. (Big Brother Dean was apologetic as Little Brother Sam recited the story with elaborate detail, but he would be the first to admit it was fun to watch the kid get drunk. Sammy was a happy drunk.) 

It began with Dean gushing from a scary-deep abdominal wound after an encounter with the grey ghost of a Civil War officer in the grasslands of northwest Oklahoma. The angry Confederate wielded a corporeal cavalry sabre. Sam gleefully imitated his older brother yelling at Sam and Bobby about the blood, Dean’s blood, staining Baby’s leather seats.

Dean, who sort of was dying, lay with his head in Sam’s lap in the back seat. Both of Sam’s hands were pressed against the wound with a folded bath towel stolen from their last motel. It was already soaked through. Bobby drove, pedal to the floor, rocketing south down the Texas Panhandle. Both Bobby and Sam were mumbling prayers to Castiel, who unfortunately was in a warded part of Heaven in the angelic equivalent of closed executive session, with angelic leadership representing 1,000 holy garrisons.

Sam claimed that the Impala broke the sound barrier somewhere around Dumas and did not touch down until she nosed into the emergency entrance of the hospital in Amarillo at 1 am. Sam, Bobby, and a squad of EMTs got Dean out of the car, and he still was yelling, but with much less energy, for everyone to watch out for the damn blood and the damn leather in his sweet ride.     

Lev and Sam laughed as present-day Dean pretended to pout. He said that he was the only one who had their priorities straight that night.

Castiel, Angel Warrior of the Lord, showed up and healed Dean just as the doctors were declaring time of death. He had not been amused, but complied with Dean’s request to keep the Impala looking good and blasted her clean with a bolt of white light.

(If it did not involve the end of the world, again, Castiel rarely could turn down his best friend.)

I will meet your Blessed Angel some day, said the Russian.

Sam and Dean exchanged looks; both brothers grinned. 

Would not miss it for the world, said Dean, Sam nodding in agreement.

Lev’s scars were uglier, deeper, darker. Deeper burns from fire and acid, claws like fishhooks, ripping out long strips of flesh. Bullet holes. Fingers and hands broken and set, re-broken and reset.

Many tattoos. Like an old sailor, they hung from old flesh like the expensive but tattered curtains in a hotel that had once seen better days.

One cauliflower ear and one very scary gash, healed white, across his throat and all the way around his neck.

This one, this…was from a very…angry…man, the Siberian said slowly.

If Lev had told the brothers that he had been decapitated and sewn his own head back in place, they would have believed him.


	6. Closing Up

The longer they talked, the less pronounced was Lev’s accent. Turns out he was minor Russian royalty, whose patriarch had fled to Paris before the Revolution, schooling his children and children’s children in France and England and finally moving to South America before World War II. Lev moved back to the Motherland decades later. His Russian was flawless, but so were his English, French, Portuguese, Greek, German, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, Romanian (and Italian by default), and a half-dozen Chinese dialects. A true cosmopolitan, he had hunted in dozens of countries.

By the time the first bottle of Colorado premium potato vodka had died a soldier’s death, Sam was tilting to port on his bar seat, his size 13 boots curled under the foot rail as twin anchors. He was a very happy hunter, but losing focus. With Dean and Lev on either side, they steered him to a booth and slowly lowered him onto a bench, where he slowly toppled over.

He is a good boy, said Lev, and patted the Sam on a bare leg that stretched endlessly. 

Intercepting the look of devotion on Dean’s face for his brother was exactly like staring into the sun at noon. Lev blinked, squinted, shut his eyes, and swayed a step backwards. 

When he opened them, Dean was covering Sam with some of the discarded clothing. Then, Dean pulled on a flannel shirt and his own jeans from the pile on the table and shrugged into a jacket, handing Lev a pair of pants and the first of several layers of his bulky wool and cashmere sweaters. 

The two hunters stumbled back to the Birdseye maple bar and connected with two of the cushioned stools. It was 3 am. The cook had long since left for his single twin bed in a small room in the back, which once had been a utility closet. A place for him to sleep was a small kindness on the part of the owner. They had attended a predominantly Irish parochial high school together decades before on the near South Side, playing on the same football team for three winning seasons.

There were ties that transcended family and heaven. 

The bartender cleaned up the dining room. She had been busy in the kitchen and placed an enormous plate piled with freshly fried potato wedges, two bottles of ketchup, a bottle each of malt vinegar and red hot sauce, and another bottle of Colorado vodka in front of the hunters, together with a handful of fresh cloth napkins. She handed Lev the keys to the dining room. 

We won’t be open again until five pm night, she said. Just turn off the lights, lock up, and give the keys to the front desk guy. Hot coffee and donuts in the lobby at 6 am. 

She leaned over the bar and presented the bill. Lev peeled off eight centuries from his roll, which included a very generous tip for her and the cook. She took them and walked over to the register, placed the cash in the drawer, closed it slowly, and locked it with a key that she had been keeping on a clip attached to a lanyard around her neck.

She walked back to the table. She was tired, but she didn’t slouch. Her complexion was creamy and flawless, and her liquid brown eyes were clear, despite the hour. Her body ghosted under the sweater, promising riches.

Lev then pulled another five hundred dollars from his roll and held them out to her, with a quizzical tilt of his head and the gentlest of smiles on his lips. She looked at the two men, paused, and shook her head with regret. 

I got a good man and two great kids waiting for me at home, she said. She started to push the $500 back into his hand. 

Lev stood up, curled her fingers up over the money, and kissed the blue veins under the thin, milk-colored skin on her wrist tenderly, as if they were married lovers.

She left, bundled in a worn, down coat and one of Lev’s heirloom cashmere scarves as a parting gift. 

Dean and Lev silently chewed through the pile of steak fries, each lost in thought. Dean had drowned his side of the plate with ketchup and hot sauce. Lev ate his heavily peppered and soaked with the malt vinegar.

The wind still hammered at the building, powered by the hex bag in the skirt pocket of the witch and fueled by the elemental force of the Great Lakes.

Sam was sound asleep, barelegged, under a pile of sweaters and flannel shirts.

Lev reached over and broke open the bottle of Becherovka he had bought for the brothers earlier, pouring generous shots into two tumblers he liberated from the clean stack behind the bar. Dean had never encountered the herbal liqueur with its mix of anise, cinnamon, and a dozen other hints of field and forest. Following the Siberian’s lead he sipped and raised his eyebrows. The legendary enchanted potion danced on his tongue. He felt renewed.


	7. The Talk

So, asked Lev, what is wrong with you American hunters?

Dean took no offense. He already liked and respected the Siberian. He was funny, generous, with awesome skills if only 1/10 of his stories were 1/10 accurate, and obviously devoted to the hunt. Under the Uncle Ivan protective coloring the clown was a shrewd operator, smarter than he let on. Dean was reminded of Bobby.

You tell me, said Dean.

You isolate yourselves from the world, said Lev. You would think you are hermit saints, or, and he smiled, Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider. Holy, unique, and alone. Riding into town, a ghost pulled from the grave for revenge.

But no one understands, said Dean. Son of a bitch. You want us to tell civilians the truth about their kids' monsters in the closets? Would be like telling the entire population of Manhattan that a hundred dirty bombs in the subways are set to go off in 20 minutes. Tell them about vampire nests and shifters? That your beloved Grandma’s ghost is going to go crazy and trip her great-grand daughter down the stairs? Tell them the boogie man exists, except it is actually 100,000 creatures, and they are not just under the bed? That they walk among us, feeding on our blood and fears?

And what about those blessed angels? Tell people that the spiritual well-being of the human race is looked after by a gang of dickwads who are as reckless and self-delusional as the humans they pretend to protect–and how is that looking after the humans thing working for us, anyhow?

Not what I mean,” says Lev. He shook his head.

Ok, says Dean. He leans forward and rolls his shoulders, getting the kinks out.

Despite the amount of alcohol he has drunk in the last ten hours, he is, for Dean, cold sober. He looks earnest, almost professorial. This is not Peter Pan with the jokes and the pranks. Not the hedonist, swooning over women and pie. Not the high-functioning alcoholic, his pain blurred behind the permanent veil of Hunter Helper. Not the brother and lover. Not the athlete who could score multiple gold medals if and when the Olympics of Hunters is held.

And not the Dean that is condescended to by the friends and family who have said for years–Well, Dean is as smart as Sam, in his own way.

Now, Lev gets to see Dean as smart as Sam. Period. The genius who memorizes facts and processes variables faster than the speeding bullet when it blew out of the muzzle of that rabid hunter’s gun-1,700 mph Dean would tell you.

But he can’t just be good at tactics to live as long as he has.

People accuse him of being the shoot, ready, aim guy. The tragedy of Dean, and his glory, is that when he makes that choice in the moment, to end the world or to save it, he knows. He knows what is going to happen, and why. He takes all of the blame and adds it to his burden of decisions made, actions taken, which he shoulders.

Lev begins. Dean gets to work, wanting to understand. Listens.

Things are different outside of the United States, says Lev. Hunters are not Lone Rangers in the rest of the world, even with our silver bullets. Dean smiles.

Not only do we work together, but we work with other groups as well. Unofficial brotherhoods and sisterhoods of clean cops, and dirty cops and mobsters who can be trusted to take a bribe and keep their word. Tribal nations. Universities. Religious organizations. There are some governments, some dark ops departments, some officials, and some military who know who we are. We work together.

Dean started to speak, but Lev put his hand up.

Also, you are burdened by the romance that crippled your father, your mother’s family, and generations of Wild West hunters: the mythical romance of poverty and living on the margins of life. Who says you can be a hunter only in the dark, live only in broken-down motels. There is money. People give us money. They are grateful. They give us things to do our job. We live okay.

Yes, my family is filthy rich. He smiled. But…you are the CEO of a rich company whose family cemetery ghouls ravage, or whose children are killed and gutted by something horrible, and trust me, you will write a check, buy plane tickets, deliver guns.

Being poor does not build character. It makes you bitter and sick and mean.

Dean was stunned into silence, remembering.

Yes, you have, how do you say in English, a web, a network. All scribbled down in little books. Very nice. Very disorganized. Very haphazard. You waste time. You waste money.

Then there are the friendlies. Your Garth, the werewolf. Missouri. Pamela, poor lady. The owners of spice shops and hoodoo shops, who, if you have not noticed, are witches and warlocks and wizards and enchanters and seers. They keep still, they know you hate them, but they admire you, they want to help. You all have the same enemies. So, they stay…in the closet. Out of touch until needed. But they work behind the scenes.

Your successes are not all your dumb good luck, comrade. Dean smiles at the reference. Sometimes, someone is helping.

Dean’s mind was churning. Lev’s words were cracking open windows and doors that had been nailed shut by his father decades ago. Dean had thought the same things, as had Sam, but when they brought them up to ole “my way or the highway” John, and later to the Campbell family and other hunters, even Bobby, they were told why they must be Clint Eastwood and the Lone Ranger. End of story.


	8. The Talismen

You have the Talismen, said Lev.

Dean tilted his head, a habit that he had unknowingly picked up from his angelic best friend. 

Pardon, do you mean talisman? Dean could not tell if Lev was mispronouncing or misunderstanding the word.  
  
Lev shook his head.

 _Ta-lis-men,_ he said, emphasizing the pronunciation of the last syllable. People, not things. 

You have people who helped you, and you never knew it. Did you ever wonder how, despite the impossible nature of your work, you survived? As little children, you and Sam waited alone, for days, in decrepit motel rooms. Did you think it was only your skills as a pickpocket and beggar that fed you and your brother?

Lev’s bluntness surprised Dean. How did Lev know?

Maybe there were people who knew to look the other way, because they knew who you were. Left a door open with a purse plump with cash on a table in plain sight. Filled a bag of groceries and forgot it at a bus stop. Parked an old car in an alley, so easy to jumpstart, if the keys weren’t already in the ignition. Let you walk out of the store with your shirt stuffed with pasta and candy. Made sure there was a motel room available at a bargain price, waiting for you.

They failed, sometimes. Those failures still haunt them. You never knew. Neither did John. Bobby, we think, suspected.

And how did a nomadic child, even with a genius IQ, get that full ride into Stanford? How many teachers made time for extra coaching? How many librarians looked the other way when they saw you and Sam sneak out the back door with pockets full of books?

Dean, there are very good people in the world, who housed you and fed you and clothed you and left $20 tips unchaperoned for you to think you were stealing and to slip into your pocket, because they saw what you were going through and wanted to help. 

The Pudding Lady, thought Dean, thinking of long ago in Wichita at a fancy hotel brunch. _[See my story, The Bear]._

Others, the ones who knew that there were Talismen, and they could serve a cause by becoming one of them, were told you would be coming, and they prepared.

And they made you pie, Dean. Not prepackaged microwaved food, but pies made with love, prayed over, providing spiritual sustenance, feeding your soul.

Did you ever wonder why you love pie, kiddo, and why pie makes you feel so good? 

I will bet you right now that a goodly number of those girls you slept with were available not just because you are so beautiful–Dean blushed, and Lev looked at him with a touch of wistfulness–but because they were good girls, very good girls, whose families were ravaged at one time or another by monsters, and this was gratitude. When they whispered their thanks, maybe it was not just because of a night of pleasure. 

They want to do more for you, your brother, Bobby, and the others. But they know your pride.

 _American hunters,_ Lev said, with exasperation.

After God disappeared, after every demon and angel was looking for you and Sam and the Blessed Castiel, after the Leviathans stole your identities, even after you became a Knight of Hell and were burdened by the Mark of Cain, you survived. And you will never know how many people gratefully threw themselves in harms’ way, as you Americans say, to give you a clean getaway. 

When you go back to the bunker, think about what I said. Let me know if you don’t want to be Clint Eastwood anymore.

Dean had more questions, but his cellphone went off. It was Bobby, checking in to see how they were doing. When Dean looked around, Lev had already picked up the rest of his clothing and had gone to his room to move his bags back to the lobby and wait for his ride.


	9. Jeremiah Duffy

It was 6 am. The mid-winter sun would not be up for at least another 90 minutes, but, for the first time in days, starlight sparkled off the fields of snow that covered the city. Lev knew even without consulting his holy beads or cell phone that the three white witches had found Agrafena and successfully reined in her meteorological temper tantrum. This meant that they had the Siberian witch cornered in the old North End neighborhood of Winnipeg, where the secular Jewish families who did not abide by the Orthodox prohibitions against harnessing supernatural powers had lived for a century or more. Powerful traces of White Russian magic still held sway.

Time to go.

The airports in the Midwest, including O’Hare, still were closed. The region was blanketed with many feet of snow, and travel still was mostly locked down, despite an army of snow removal equipment. Outside the hotel, the sound of Jeremiah’s all-wheel-drive luxury G63 AMG Mercedes with 536 horsepower shattered the new peace. Hell with the Yukon, thought Lev, watching the great red brute grind through drifts as tall as a man. With a little magical upgrade, they could figure a way to bridge the Bering Strait and drive Lev home.

Jeremiah turned out to be of average height, with jet-black eyes, a shaved head, coppery skin, and more tattoos than the average djinn. He had entered the military to escape the gang culture in Chicago. He also wanted to earn money for college and fulfill the warrior inheritance of both sides of his family.

He liked the structure of military life and liked ganking bad guys. Jeremiah had heard of hunters, and his maternal grandmother, a bruja from a long line of skilled practitioners of the white arts, had educated him about the supernatural world even before his father gave him the talk about girls, sex, and respect. He had hoped to partner with a real hunter some day, so his gig with Lev was a dream come true.

Jeremiah had a sweet personality, lovely manners, topnotch weapons’ training, and the fortitude of his Apache forefathers. When Dean told him to drop and give him 20, Jeremiah responded by flipping into a handstand and sailing through the push-ups. Upside down. One-handed.

Dean finished dressing and temporarily locked Sam in the bar. There was more than enough delivered coffee and pastries in the lobby to revive the three men. Lev tipped the night auditor an extra hundred; Dean promised to return shortly with the dining room keys. At one point, Lev had pressed his fingertips against Dean’s forehead, Castiel-like, and his fatigue and incipient hangover vanished.

Dean definitely had questions for Castiel about their new friend.  
  
They loaded up the bulky Mercedes SUV. Jeremiah had parked it next to Baby; Lev swore the two vehicles were flirting. Dean immediately went into “Dad on Prom Night” mode, which Lev and Jeremiah thought hysterically funny. (Years later, Dean realized that this encounter was part of the path to _Baby Waking Up._ )

The young veteran already had begun the process of warding his vehicle, which he had christened Cochise. (His mother had petitioned unsuccessfully for Diablo after the Cisco Kid’s horse.) Dean dug around in the back of Baby and found a couple of Nordic charms and a spare copy of a sigils cheat sheet that Sam had compiled during one of their yearly, end-of-the-world crises.

Lev kissed Dean on both cheeks and gave him a hug that bruised a couple of ribs. He climbed into the SUV, and he and Jeremiah headed towards I-294, back up to Wisconsin and beyond. The sun was climbing its way over a frozen Lake Michigan; the light on the snow banks was blinding. The air was still freezing, but the wind had died down. Winter-hardy urban birds were hunting for food; Dean threw a sassy trio of crows the pieces of a donut.

Dean went back in, unlocked the dining room, and woke Sam–no easy task–with a cup of very good coffee pimped up with real cream and sugar–and a giant slice of kringle pastry from a wheel that Jeremiah had brought down from Racine. Sam dressed, they gathered up the rest of their belongings, locked up the dining room, and returned the keys to the night auditor.

Dean remarked he had not seen another guest the whole night. The auditor smiled.

We mostly cater to a special clientele, he said.

Dean, with his new knowledge, shook his hand and made a guess.

 _Talismen?_ Dean emphasized the last syllable as Lev had.

The man nodded, pleased.

An honor to serve the Winchesters and Lev Konstantinovich.

And his eyes flashed gold? Silver? 

Thank you, said Dean. For everything.

Sam asked, What was that?

Tell you in the car, said Dean.  
  
They pointed Baby south through a silent, white city and headed west on I-80 and back to Kansas, under a sky as blue as topaz angel eyes.


	10. The Gift

**The Bunker – Somewhere Outside Lebanon, Kansas**

The next year, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series.

Heaven rejoiced, but denied it was divine intervention that lifted the curse. Hell was silent. Many a deluded fan had attempted crossroad deals, but Crowley always refused. Bad for business if he signed contracts he would not have been able to fulfill.

This took very old power, Castiel intoned to Bobby and the brothers.

The hunters and angel celebrated with Dean’s equally magical bacon cheeseburgers (the secret was the fresh-baked, toasted buns and the blackened fresh green chilis), fried onion rings (dipped in buttermilk and cornmeal) served with ice-cold hard cider, and apple pie a la mode (homemade butter pecan ice cream, cranked by an angel), and followed by treasured shots of Becherovka.

 _Ernie Banks_ , they solemnly toasted in unison. 

 _Lev the Lion,_ said Dean. 

 _Lev the Lion,_ said Bobby, Sam, and Castiel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [August 11, 2017] This was written before the beginning of the Cubs winning season and before the introduction of the British Men of Letters, who I am convinced are neither British nor MOL, regardless of what the canon says.
> 
> And it took me some time, but I figured out who Lev is. And that will be for another story.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for the kudos and comments.


End file.
